


Basking in the light left by you

by Ursapharoh15



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and the signal
Genre: Baby duke, Black Male Character, Duke needs more love, Duke tries his hardest and the world beats him for it, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Morning birds, Mother-Son Relationship, Police profiling, Sunshine and butterflies for exactly two seconds, adopted sibling, good mom Elaine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 18:13:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15779418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ursapharoh15/pseuds/Ursapharoh15
Summary: It was morning. Despite everything her husband, her body, and the snoring little lump cuddled between them both felt, the world said it was morning; and morning meant it was time to get to work.





	Basking in the light left by you

It was morning. Despite everything her husband, her body, and the snoring little lump cuddled between them both felt, the world said it was morning; and morning meant it was time to get to work. Elaine forces her eyes open to confront the streak of light that laid across her face, the faster to face the day the faster to change it for the better. She needed to get up, play the game of normality and take her place as pillar and guide to her son. Her son, Duke, who was a whole six years old now and already knew way too much for his age but not nearly enough to survive as a black face in a place like Gotham.

Sliding from the bed, she's careful of her husbands heavy arm around her waist and the small fists clinging to her sleep shirt and tucks them both back in once she’s standing. She's up, moving, getting, the blood flowing and ready to set today in motion. Get busy living or get busy dying, for all intents and purposes. Because in this city, if you didn’t get busy living, Gotham will be on your tail working to help you get busy dying. Or at the very least making your attempts at living inconvenient. Like now, in the middle of an apocalypse at the hands the Riddler and a well timed hurricane, one of the hardest parts of her day was deciding how to do her hair now that salons were a thing of the looted past.

She decided that braiding her hair down was the best solution, and let the boys choose their favorite colored scarfs for her to wear. Yellow was the choice of the morning, wrapped tight, and loose ends tucked away, nice and bright to start the day. Everytime she scrubbed him down, kept him up and finish greasing his scalp, she'd tell Duke "you look good, you feel good, you do good." Important words to live by.

After getting herself ready, it was time to wake her Sunshine. Sitting on the edge of the bed she started the loving routine.  
She shakes his small shoulder and coos lowly, “Sunshine, it’s time to get up, baby.” The responding whimper is a good sign as the little ball curls tighter against his daddy’s side, “Come on, the sun is shining bright just for you, Duke”

She scoots closer following the way he tries to melt into the relaxed muscles of his dad and escape the gentle patting on his back forcing him out of sleep “Duke, let's get up, we gotta make breakfast.” She waits, one broken sleep filled breath as her baby slowly roused himself, then a second one before digging her hands under his armpits and getting him up into a sitting position.  
The boy leans dangerously to one side, eyes half lidded and lazily blinking back at her “Mmm?” He sighs from too lax lips.

She catches his head before it can land back among the body warmed blankets and the trickling light “No, no, no, sunshine. Sit up, now. Let me see those pretty eyes.” She cups both his baby soft cheeks and waits for him to force his eyes open. It takes a long sigh, the rise and shake of his little shoulders as he scrunches up his nose and let his nostrils flare in annoyance. Finally before he seems to slip back into sleep, his shoulders fall, his face relaxes a little tongue darts out over full lips, and his eyes open.

The light filters passed their curtains and across both their faces lighting up Duke's Umber eyes and revealing the almost golden sepia underneath with the light. They blink slowly up at her before moving to look around the room, another deep breath and he’s reaching out with grabby hands. “Mmmom”

She wraps him up in her arms nice and tight and slides off the bed to her feet. She waltzes them into the kitchen “Hello sweet boy, it’s time to face the day. Let’s face it with a smile.”  
Breakfast is a slim affair. Slim pickings but her plan to fix that was a simple one; cross town, grab the relief bags, and run home like their lives depended on it. It should’ve been easy, it would've been easy, had Doug not gotten sick. The kind of sick that didn't help people so big, eating portions so small and the infection ratcheted up a fever that refused to break. The slimy prodding of powder eggs to her lips is enough to bring her out of her mind. “You forgot,” Duke presses the spoon insistently against her lips “You and dad always forget.”  
She did not forget, but his little life meant far more. It’s a quick and appeasing bite and an even quicker kiss to his forehead on the edge of baby curls.

The both of them scrub down the single plate with a little dribble of water from a water bottle before they go to put their shoes on. They both write separate notes and leave them by the breakfast left for Doug, still fitfully sleeping in the dark room, before they slip out into the world full of chaos.

The trick was convincing her baby that everything was alright, that the sun shone on just another normal Wednesday. Fake it till you can make it. They started walking with only the scarce dawn light to guide them. If you dared to leave your house, morning was the best time. Walk out with your head held high as if life is still normal and you were untouchable, nothing’s more terrifying to chaos than normality. With her vibrant yellow headwrap, a little red wagon, and her baby reciting the planets, Elaine was normality incarnate.

The walk to the supply drop was about six miles outside of the narrows, passed several other peoples territories. The walk was made longer if you decided to go around Poison Ivy’s base of operations which was the Wayne botanical gardens, it was best to just go the long way. By the time they had arrived and Duke had helped her load the two backpacks worth of food and medication into the wagon the day was very nearly gone and night was on its way. Her realm of normality was quickly coming to a close.

The choice to stop on the outskirts of the thick foliage and flowers from Ivy’s domain was a thinly veiled chance for her to take a breath while teaching Duke about some of the flowers, “We don’t touch, not these flowers, but that one is a...” She waits for Duke to lean far enough out to see the bright yellow sunflower she’s pointing to.

“A--uhm, a sunflower?” he hedges, though his smile grows to match the smile she offers him.

“That’s right! A common sunflower also known as Helianthus annuus , say it with me baby” She goes through every flower as far as they can spot on the edge of the green. Laughing and teaching and resting her throbbing feet.

As they recline on the dirt road alongside Ivy's realm the wind twists around them both, from a distance they spot gravel and dirt being kicked up, and the blaring of police sirens accompanied it. There hasn’t been any proper form of policing since the hurricane hit the city, least of all this close to the Narrows. This feels wrong.  
Over the hill they came, they must have siphoned off gas or had a backup stash, too far away to see if they were legit. Elaine kisses her teeth, no real place to hide and being in too tight of corridors could encourage a worse ending than a public arena might.

Without a second thought she was on her feet and standing firm, Duke danced from foot to foot. Small fingers gripped her pants and hand “Mom? Mama, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t know, guess we’ll have to see,” she soothes as she grips the back of Dukes shirt and nonchalantly put the other on her hip, feeling the weight of the gun she’d hidden.

“Let’s not, lets just—“ a pink tongue swipes at his lips nervously “Let's just run, we can go super fast” He tenses his body as if to dart right this instant, ready to drag Elaine behind him.

Her grip is firmer “No. We don’t run, not from them, we stand our ground. Don’t you ever run, from a cop. You make them look you in the eyes,” The sirens grow louder and the sound of gravel crunching as she adjusts her stance. Feet set firmed, a flicker in her eyes and ready to stand her ground. “Ready? Eyes up, baby.”

———————————————

It’s morning. Far too bright for bats to be about, far too early for them to be in the middle of a smoldering and half destroyed warehouse, and far too early for Duke to be bleeding and pinned under what felt like the remains of a crate. He was supposed to be starting his shift, not continuing from a tag team from earlier that night, not that it mattered. He was issued the call and he’d still had a case to finish up. The call now felt something akin to pounding thunder's in his head as his hearing slowly returned from a chemical explosion. Although it was a cool band name, it was not a cool experience and the sharp realization that he probably should be dead hangs heavy in his chest.

He needed to get up, get back to doing the bat's good work. That could mean any number of things though, he needed to focus it down to bare essentials. What does he absolutely have to address? Dragging himself up to all fours and letting charred planks settle with a clutter around him, he blearily looked around for any survivors. His mind soaks in any bit of information his torn and lightly smoking environment will yield him.

Firstly, everything hurt, his shoulder especially. A glance shows a weeping deep red against his yellow armor.

"That explains the pain then"

A quick shaking hand up to his head reveals a split helmet and blood running into his eye.

"and that explains the one eyed perception and the splitting headache too."

A soft and broken whistle echos somewhere and in a panic he wonders if it may be the effects of tinnitus, or worse another venom hyped chemist. Even still, his blood covered hand goes to touch his exposed ear when the whistle comes more deliberate, almost a tune but too distressed to be placed to any particular song. He’d played this game, marco polo, he’d been playing it most recently with Cass *...Shit, Cass!*

Duke’s answering whistle is shrill and makes no attempt at a song. his first stumbling steps are in the wrong direction drifting too far to the left before sharply correcting and finding the pile of rubble that she seemed pinned under.

Falling to his knees he bends to see her face but he’s met with different brown eyes, one of the kids running the drugs a few years younger than himself, tucked under the limp body of Black bat. “She just tackled me out of nowhere man! Word to the bat! She won’t move-- can--can you get us out?” *Can I?* He felt like shit and must've look it too, to get a look of panic like that from a kid with an untrained eye. His tongue feels thick so he just nods carefully and backs up to move the debris.

Dragging them both out takes longer than Duke would like, pulling and twisting his bleeding shoulder, but once they’ve carefully laid Cass on her back that’s one more concrete step for him to stand on, “She gon’ be okay?” The kid leans his head closer to Duke’s own bowed head as he takes in the direness of this situation and looks over the prone bat.

He hums noncommittally, “You’ve seen her, she’ll be fine.” He’s gentle anyway, there wasn’t any obvious injury but in the harsh light and the harsh life they’d taken to, it was hard not to ache for gentleness. He starts with a soft hand cupping her cheek and a thumb swiping the blood and dirt away. She doesn’t move but he persists “Black bat, you with me?”

She starts out slow, a twitch of the nose and a frown, Duke’s voice trembles with the relief “That’s it, you're with me. Come on,” one brown eye blinks slowly up at him, the white out lenses of the remaining part of her mask stares blankly back at him. His smile pulls at his split lip but he doesn’t lessen it in the slightest “You have a good nap?”

It’s a quick blink and she was trying to sit up, Duke jumps to calm her as she makes a grab for him and fails to get a grip on his kevlar “Hey! Hey, hey, easy there.That blast hit you hard,” The shaking of her head and the resulting groan speaks to the suspected concussion “Lets maybe not move so much right now, let’s focus. Black bat?” The wandering stare speaks to other plans as her hand clamps onto the shirt of the kid and uses it to pull herself into a upright position, “No, no, ey, quit it!! Black—don’t—”

He and the kid are trying to loosen the death grip she has on the kid’s filthy and torn Gotham Guardsmen shirt. It’s useless, her fist impossibly tightens as she sways to one side and then the other. Calming her down shouldn’t have been so hard, it wouldn’t have been so hard if it were any of the other bats trying with her. Cass seemed fond of him but he was pretty sure that was from some form of both of them being the newest recruits to the Wayne gig than any actual care. As it was, no one was likely to be coming for them for a very long time. Duke's comm was blown to hell and the way Cass tapped her ear made it seem all the more likely hers had cut out as well.

With her hand still on the boy's collar, her head lolls to the side as if trying to catch something off the wind as it swirls the dirt and the smoke around them. Then they all hear it; sirens.

Both young men freeze, glancing at each other. The silent understanding passing between them, an instinct that runs as deep as their melanin. The kid twists violently out of Cass’ grip, tearing his shirt to break free, and takes off running without another word or a glance back. Duke feels his heart speed up with the panic as the sirens' wail closer still. They were coming and they were coming for them.

He needed a simple plan, something to execute, complete, and succeed in, “Cass, Cassandra babe, let me see those pretty eyes”, He tries to keep his voice soft but it comes out in a harsh hiss as he starts to move. Those wise brown eyes slowly roll to meet his own with the call of her name, unsteady and mildly annoyed that their other companion had left so quickly, "...Not...babe...Black Bat....field names"

“That's right. Right. Listen, I’ve gotta pick you up so we can get you home.” Keep it simple, grab cass, haul ass, make it home.

She frowns “No..." she tries to force herself up to right "fight through..get...home...” she doesn't make it to her feet.

“Yeeeah...see now, that’s a bad plan. We need to get to your house, the mansion. Can I touch you? Just for a bit?” She reconsiders the situation and studies him oddly before nodding “Perfect, just gonna get you into a piggy back—easy, nice and slow—perfect, hold tight” she nearly strangles him as she leans her head against the missing chunk of his helmet, blood tacky skin meeting blood tacky skin.

The sirens are blaring now as they grow into a terrible shriek, if he was going to get them out, this was Duke's chance. Stumblingly he takes off as fast as he can, picking over concrete and splintered wood. It hurts, the blinding pain in his shoulder and the weight of Cass on his back, distantly around the thudding in his ears, he thinks of all the times his parents told him not to run.

He runs now. Followed closely by shouting and the sounds of footsteps behind him. Down one alleyway and banking a hard right into another, his heart matches the throbbing of pain and the gasps of his breath, and he keeps running. He races the light, Cass’ legs tucked snuggly under his armpits and her arms wrapped firmly around his neck spurs him on.

Don’t get caught, don’t get caught, don’t get caught, is Duke's mantra in this moment. Distantly a part of him insists he stop and make it to the rooftops, the bat in him insists he take flight. The narrows in him insists he simply get distance.

He can hear the cop chasing him gaining, huffing and puffing, he takes another turn to throw them further off. He thought keeping his robin squads noses clean was hard with the GCPD breathing down his neck. He could only imagine the picture he and Cass would make, a black kid running around with an asian girl slung on his back. Oh, yeah, real easy to just talk his way out of that, cracked helmet and ruined masks aside.

The squealing of a police car sliding in front of the exit of the alley is soul crushing. The spitting of gravel and the slamming of car doors is just the beginning of his end,“Stop! GCPD! I said freeze!” Duke slows, he can’t make it out of this straight way to somewhere public, somewhere he could blend into the crowd, somewhere where, as his mother would put it, the domain of normality reigned supreme.

His run fades to a jog, which stutters to a shuffle before stopping. The click that once was familiar from a lesson with Jason echoes off the brick walls. He tightens his grip on Cass before slowly letting her slide to the ground. He broadens his chest as much as he can, don’t let them hit Cass, she needs to make it out.  
He faces the two cops head on, body firmly in front of Cass even as he hears the one cop behind him slow to a stop. A Silence like the one that he’d grown used to in the cave screams in the air twisting and slicing up his thudding heart. The cops take aim, eyeing him warily even as he presents his hands, fingers reaching for the sun. His heart wails, move! Get out of the way!  
He’s shaking he notices, the trembles in his hands though whether from the fear, the adrenaline, or the pain of the movement he doesn’t have time to dwell on it. He lifts his chin, forces his blood sealed eye open so that he can see each officer properly and they can see the human in this armor. He waits for what's next, feet set firm, ready to stand his ground, like his mother taught him, but in his eyes there's not a flicker; there was a dim glow.  
The whispers among the cops are barely coherent over his heart beat but he hears them  
“It’s a bat”

“Two bats, must be new—“

“Bat saved my sisters life—“

“Where’s the big guy—“

“Robins? Not gonna take in a rob—“

“Don’t shoot”

Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, the guns are slowly lowered eyes never leaving Dukes chest. He hears footsteps and the third cop walks passed them “We give the bat one pass. Go on your way.”

The car pulls away with the cops all inside. Duke collapses to the ground. He grabs for Cass’ hand, and bites back his broken whimpers as he grips her hand tight. He met their eyes and they looked to the bat on his chest for reassurance. One day, this city would not be the domain of the bat or siren, he’ll make sure a domain of normality would reign supreme. The domain his mother always envisions for him, for all of Gotham.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic posted and I wanted it to be love note to our underappreciated yellow lark Duke Thomas. I want him to get appreciated and recognized for what he is and the world he's been thrown and born into. It was hard and it was worth it. Hit me up for requests or if I should keep going with out boy in yellow. I got things in the works for him but it's always good to hear form y'all. Kudos and comment, thanks for sticking around!!


End file.
